Organ failure in sepsis

The development of organ failure determines the course and prognosis of the septic patient. Although several successful clinical trials in recent years have raised the enthusiasm of intensivists, severe sepsis and septic shock still have an increasing incidence with more or less unchanged mortality. Recent sepsis research, including progress made in definitions, epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, standard and adjunctive therapy, and experimental approaches, is encouraging. This includes genomic information for stratifying subgroups of patients, a broader field of laboratory diagnostics due to clinical studies, and basic research on the cellular mechanisms of inflammation and organ dysfunction. Furthermore, new findings in pathogenesis and therapeutic approaches to organ failure merit attention. In this review, state-of-the-art publications are presented to elucidate the possible impact of sepsis-induced organ failure on clinical routine.